Yeah, the hug helped. Really helped. Hugging Claudia wasn’t exactly an unusual event, although it didn’t happen nearly as often as it could have, in her opinion, but considering that they weren’t in the same House and kept sort of different schedules in terms of when they got up for meals and when Marley was on the Quidditch pitch or Claudia was in the theatre, she thought they were doing pretty well. The shock of seeing Claudia and Connor together and feeling that sudden sadsadsad emotion that was the closest to hatred that she had ever gotten had been paired up with a lot of thoughts that she assumed had been in her head but she was only properly realizing them now. Like, the thought that the girls wouldn’t ever get to hug again because they would stop being friends. Even as a subconscious kind of thought, bubbling around without her giving it any direct attention, that direction of thought had surely still made the situation even more sadsadsad.

Marley sighed, a bit shakily but already feeling better, and made sure to give her friend -- best friend, because they were friends again, oh thank goodness -- an extra firm squeeze so that Claudia would know just how relieved she was. But that wasn’t good enough, so as soon as she had pulled back, she put it out in words, too. “I’m so glad. Thank you.” Was it weird to thank someone for accepting your apology? It wasn’t something that she had done before, like, ever, but she’d never made such a serious apology before, either. So probably it wasn’t weird. To forgive someone when they had been mean to you was so difficult; already, Marley wasn’t sure if she would be able to forgive Connor (unless he asked very nicely, and then she would try harder, of course). Marley didn’t like to think of herself as mean, and really had never had reason to do so.

But today was apparently a day of crossing off all the nevers, because here she was, having been mean to Claudia and told her she hated her when really she was just sadsadsad and didn’t know how to interpret that and it hadn’t even really been Claudia’s fault anyways, it was Connor’s fault first and Claudia’s fault second but also Marley’s own fault because neither of them knew how to handle it with each other, and life was just totally confusing today. On the topic of confusion…

“So what should we do now?”

“I… I don’t know.” Marley blinked, surprising herself with the confession. She was also surprised when no more watery tears got squished out by the blink, although slowly she was realizing that her breathing felt normal again. The spot behind her nose and eyes still felt a little sore and probably that meant her nose and eyes were still kinda puffy from crying, but she wasn’t crying any more, and the air going in and out of her lungs couldn’t be perfectly lined up with a metronome but it wasn’t nearly as unpredictable as earlier.

“Like,” she tried to explain herself, “now I understand why you did what you did, and my own side too, duh, so the only part I don’t get is why Connor did what he did, but also… I really don’t wanna talk to him now.” Maybe not ever, but Marley didn’t say that. She knew that it would sound dramatic, and there was always a chance that she would change her mind because not even nevers were forever (as she had found out today). “But I do want to spend more time with you and hang out properly, before this makes it weird,” she continued, referencing their argument not-argument but still just a sort of angry miscommunication. She couldn’t help feeling worried that if they didn’t start hanging out like normal soon, the memory of it could start fermenting in their brains and be all awkward later. “Do you wanna have dinner together? I don’t have Quidditch practice tonight. We could just eat in the Diner and talk. But not about boys.” Whoops, that came out a bit stronger than she intended.

He said it sounded like a good idea? He said it was nice of her to ask? One of the two girls was obviously very wrong - Claudia was certain that Connor would not find it agreeable to date Marley, and ... more

It seemed like things between Claudia and Marley were more or less back to normal; they were hugging and Marley was talking too much (and she wasn’t crying any more), and Claudia didn’t really know... more